JP4424229B2 - Mobile phone and charging method thereof - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a mobile phone and a charging method thereof.

Each time a mobile phone is equipped with a new function such as a video phone or a TV tuner, the current consumption of the mobile phone increases, and the number of scenes where each function such as the video phone is used while charging is increasing.
However, during the charging operation of the mobile phone, the use of the function increases the temperature of the secondary battery during charging. Further, as the current consumption of the mobile phone increases, the temperature increase rate also increases.
In the conventional method of charging a mobile phone, the charging operation is stopped when the temperature reaches a predetermined temperature due to safety aspects such as the PL method and the purpose of circuit protection, etc. until the temperature drops below the predetermined temperature. Phone charging will not resume.
For this reason, for example, when using a charging function while using a function that consumes a large amount of current, such as videophone communication, once the charging operation stops, the temperature of the mobile phone body will reach the temperature at which charging resumes. It is virtually impossible to go down.
Therefore, there is a problem or possibility that the remaining battery level is used up by continuing the videophone communication function without resuming charging. That is, for the user, the mobile phone suddenly becomes unusable while using the videophone communication function.

FIG. 1 shows an example of a conventional mobile phone charging system.
As shown in FIG. 1, the mobile phone main body 100 includes a mobile phone circuit 101, a charge control circuit 102 that performs a charging operation, and a temperature detection circuit 103 that detects the temperature of the battery. The mobile phone 100 is connected to a battery 104 and a charger 105.
FIG. 2 shows the relationship between the temperature rise and time of the mobile phone body 100 and the battery 104 during the charging operation in the conventional mobile phone body 100.

  When such a conventional mobile phone 100 starts to be charged by the charger 105, the temperatures of the mobile phone body 100 and the battery 104 rise with time as indicated by 200 in FIG. At this time, if an operation with a large current consumption such as a videophone communication is performed during the charging operation, the temperature rise speed increases. That is, if an operation with a large current consumption is started from a certain time t0 during charging, the operation changes to a rising method as indicated by 201 in FIG.

  The cellular phone main body 100 monitors the temperature rise by the temperature detection circuit 103. When the temperature reaches a certain temperature T1, the charging control circuit 102 stops the charging operation, and the cellular phone main body exceeds this temperature. To prevent high temperatures. This protects the user of the mobile phone and protects the circuit in the mobile phone.

  The charging operation is resumed when the temperature detecting circuit confirms that the battery temperature falls below a certain temperature. However, if an operation with a large current consumption such as videophone communication is continued, the temperature of the mobile phone body or the battery 104 will not drop below the restart start temperature due to heat generated by the operation. As a result, there is a possibility that a problem that the remaining amount of power of the battery 104 is extremely reduced or becomes zero due to communication while charging is stopped may become zero.

As an invention of an apparatus having such a battery and a temperature sensor, for example, JP-A-2000-124806 (Patent Document 1) can be cited.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-145274 (Patent Document 2) describes an invention of a portable device including a charging device.
Furthermore, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-44874 (Patent Document 3) describes an invention of a portable device.
JP 2000-124806 A JP 2001-145274 A JP 2002-44874 A

  In view of the above problems, the present invention can alleviate the rate of temperature rise when an operation with large current consumption is performed during charging, and can stop charging immediately or restart charging immediately. It is an object of the present invention to provide such a system and to provide such a charging method.

The mobile phone according to the present invention is a mobile phone that can be charged by a charger to a battery used as a power source of the mobile phone of the terminal, and when the current consumed by the operation of the mobile phone exceeds a predetermined value when the battery is charged. The function of the mobile phone is limited so as to suppress the current consumption .

In the present invention, there is provided switching means for switching an operation exceeding the predetermined value to an operation having a low current consumption when the current consumption exceeds a predetermined value during charging at the time of battery charging .

In the mobile phone of the present invention, in a mobile phone that can be charged with a charger to a battery used as a power source of the mobile phone of its own terminal, the battery temperature during charging of the battery is detected at regular intervals, and the temperature rise rate during charging And a control means for restricting the function of the mobile phone so as to suppress the temperature rise rate according to the temperature rise rate of the battery during battery charging .

In the present invention, there is provided switching means for switching the operation at the time of battery charging to the operation with less current consumption so as to suppress the temperature rising rate according to the temperature rising rate of the battery at the time of charging the battery. .

In any one of the present inventions, the function restriction is canceled when the speed of the battery temperature rises during the function restriction .

In any one of the present inventions, when the speed of battery temperature increase is reduced, the operation is switched to the operation before switching .

The method for charging a mobile phone according to any one of the present inventions, wherein the method detects a battery temperature during charging of the mobile phone at a constant interval and determines a rate of temperature increase during charging. When the function of the mobile phone is detected during charging and the function of the mobile phone is used, the function of the mobile phone is limited so as to suppress the temperature rise when a predetermined temperature rise rate is exceeded .

The present invention has the following effects.
In a mobile phone that can charge the battery used for the power supply of its own terminal with a charger, the current consumption of the mobile phone itself is triggered by monitoring the rate of temperature rise of the battery being charged and the rate of temperature rise exceeds a certain rate. In order to reduce the battery charge, the battery (secondary battery) can be charged more by this delay by delaying the time to reach the charge stop temperature by limiting the function of the mobile phone or switching to an operation that reduces current consumption. Since the battery can be charged, the battery can be charged or replenished in a shorter time than a conventional mobile phone.

  As described above, since the time until the charging stop temperature is extended is extended, the charging operation continuation time is also extended, so that the mobile phone can be easily prevented from falling into the charging stop state.

  Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to embodiments.

[First Embodiment]
FIG. 3 shows a first embodiment of a mobile phone having the charging device of the present invention.
The mobile phone 300 includes a mobile phone circuit 301, a charge control circuit 302 that performs a charging operation, a temperature detection circuit 303 that detects the temperature of the battery, and an operation switching circuit 306. Connected to the charger 305.

  The temperature detection circuit 303 monitors the temperature rise of the battery 304 during charging, and the temperature rise rate dΔT / dt (T represents the temperature of the battery (secondary battery) obtained by the temperature detection circuit, and ΔT represents the temperature change. When t exceeds a certain threshold value, the operation switching circuit 306 is notified. Upon receiving the notification, the operation switching circuit 306 switches the circuit in the mobile phone circuit 301 to an operation with low current consumption, or restricts the operating circuit so as to suppress the current consumption and give priority to the charging operation. Select

<Description of Operation of First Embodiment>
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an operation example of an actual mobile phone charging device, and FIG. 5 shows a relationship between temperature rise and time in the mobile phone charging system of the present invention.
The use of the videophone communication function during the charging operation will be described as an example. Let ΔT1 be the temperature rise rate when no function other than charging is used during charging. In addition, the rate of temperature increase when using the videophone communication function during charging is ΔT2, the rate of temperature increase of voice communication during charging is ΔT3,
Further, the temperature increase rate threshold is ΔT ′, and ΔT2> ΔT ′>ΔT3> ΔT1. As is apparent from this equation, ΔT2> ΔT1.

  As shown in the flowchart of FIG. 4, it is determined whether or not charging is started (step S401), and when it is determined that charging is started (YES in step S401), the temperature of the battery increases with time. (This temperature increase rate is performed by monitoring the battery temperature every time Δt), and it is first determined whether or not this increase rate is equal to or greater than a threshold value ΔT ′ (step S402), for example, only charging In this case, since the temperature rise rate ΔT1 is lower than the set threshold value ΔT ′, charging is continued (in the case of No in step S402).

  Monitoring of the battery temperature rise rate is continued at least until the battery is fully charged. For example, when a videophone function with a large current consumption is started at t = t2, the battery temperature increase rate at time Δt becomes ΔT2 by videophone communication during charging, and ΔT2 is a speed of threshold ΔT ′. (If YES in step S402). As a result, the temperature detection circuit 303 notifies the operation switching circuit 306, and the operation switching circuit 306 controls the cellular phone circuit 301 to switch the videophone communication to the voice communication (step S403).

  By this operation switching, the temperature increase rate ΔT3 is lower than ΔT ′ (YES in step S405), and the operation switching circuit 306 switches control from voice communication to videophone communication (step S406).

The above operation is repeated until the charging is completed or the charging stop temperature is reached (step S404).
This makes it possible to extend the charging operation by the time T2′−T1 ′ in the method (500) of the present invention as compared with the temperature transition (501) of the conventional charging method.

[Second Embodiment]
The configuration of the present embodiment is characterized in that functions other than the charging function and the charging function are performed independently during charging.

  That is, independent of the fact that power for charging the battery is supplied from the charger to the charge control circuit, the mobile phone circuit can stop or reduce the power supply from the battery to reduce the charging time. In addition, the power from the charger is supplied to the mobile phone circuit during charging, and various functions can be used independently of charging at least partly, supplying power to the battery, and at the time of charging The battery consumes electric power other than charging while controlling the temperature shown in FIG. 5, for example, to extend the time required for charging by preventing consumption of the battery or suppressing consumption as much as possible. Even if the function is used, at least a part of the power supply from the battery is suppressed to prevent a substantial extension of the charging time.

  That is, in this embodiment, in FIG. 3, the output from the charger 305 is supplied to the charge control circuit 302 and the mobile phone circuit 301, and a switching circuit or input control is provided between the battery 304 and the mobile phone circuit 301. A circuit is provided.

  Then, at the time of charging, similarly to the flowchart shown in FIG. 4, when it is determined that the charging in step S401 has started, the switching circuit or the input control circuit is controlled to suppress or cut off the power output from the battery. Like that.

  In this way, functions other than charging that consume power are replenished at least partly from the charger, and the battery is fully charged to shorten the charging time and control the temperature. For example, the control method as shown in the first embodiment is employed to secure the charging time.

<Other embodiments>
In the first or second embodiment described above, when the first function having a certain rate of temperature increase is used during charging, among other functions, there are other more temperature increase rates. The main purpose is to extend the charging time as much as possible by switching to a smaller second function and making the temperature rise rate smaller than when the first function was used, or In the second embodiment, a switching circuit or an input control circuit is further provided between the battery 304 and the mobile phone circuit, and the control as shown in FIG. 5 is performed by calculating a temperature gradient according to the amount of power consumption.

In this embodiment, by calculating the amount of charge to the battery, the time until the battery is fully charged is estimated, and the user who uses the mobile phone is shown in advance the possibility of shifting to other functions. It is characterized by notifying that it transfers before shifting to another function.
For example, in the first embodiment, a function that consumes the maximum power among a large number of functions is a first function, a function that has the next largest power consumption is a second function, and so on. If it is a function, the temperature rise rate for each function is stored as a table, for example, and when the user uses the first function, the maximum usage time is notified to the user on the display or by voice information. After that, the user is allowed to select in advance what function of consumption is to be changed, thereby estimating the arrival time to the temperature T1 in FIG.

  By doing in this way, in the configuration shown in the first embodiment, one or more of the functions other than the first function that consumes the maximum power is selected from a plurality of functions, and the temperature is selected. The gradient is measured, and when it exceeds a certain temperature gradient, the switch is switched to use another function having a temperature gradient less than that.

  In the second embodiment, when the first function is used, if a switching circuit is provided between the battery 304 and the mobile phone circuit, the other functions of the first embodiment described above are used. The same control as in the embodiment is performed, and one or more than one function other than the first function that consumes the maximum power is selected from a plurality of functions, and a temperature gradient is measured. When the temperature gradient is exceeded, the switch is switched to use another function having a temperature gradient less than that.

  In the second embodiment, when the first function is used and the input control circuit is provided between the battery 304 and the mobile phone circuit, the first function is used. The amount of power supplied from the battery to the mobile phone circuit is set in multiple stages, and the input of this multi-stage power is controlled to perform temperature control similar to that shown in FIG. 5, thereby extending the charging time of the battery It can also be done. Furthermore, as another example of the second embodiment, in the second embodiment, an input control circuit is provided, and the power supply amount from the battery described above is controlled while the other functions are selected from the first function. By switching to the function, it is possible to ensure the extension of the charging time of the battery, and it is possible to greatly secure the degree of freedom in using the function when charging the mobile phone.

  According to the present invention, since the charging time of the mobile phone can be substantially shortened and the function of the mobile phone at the time of charging can be secured, a more user-friendly communication device can be provided. Compared to conventional mobile phones, it is further expanded.

It is a figure which shows the structural example of the mobile telephone which has a general charger. It is a figure which shows the relationship between temperature and time at the time of using functions other than the charge in the case of general charge after t0. It is a figure which shows the structural example of the mobile telephone which has a charger in this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the operation example of the mobile telephone which has a charger of the structural example shown in FIG. 3 in this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of the temperature control in the example of the mobile telephone which has a charger shown in FIG.

Explanation of symbols

300 mobile phone 301 mobile phone circuit 302 charge control circuit 303 temperature detection circuit 304 (secondary) battery 305 charger

Claims (7)

In a mobile phone that can be charged with a charger to the battery used for the power source of the mobile phone of its own terminal,
A cellular phone characterized in that the function of the cellular phone is restricted so as to suppress the consumption current when the consumption current due to the operation of the cellular phone exceeds a predetermined value when the battery is charged. If the current consumption during charging when the battery charge exceeds a predetermined value, the mobile according to claim 1, wherein the operation exceeding the predetermined value and having a switching means for switching to the small operation of said supply current Phone. In a mobile phone that can be charged with a charger to the battery used for the power source of the mobile phone of its own terminal,
Means for detecting the battery temperature during charging of the battery at regular intervals to detect the rate of temperature rise during charging;
A mobile phone comprising a control means for restricting the function of the mobile phone so as to suppress the temperature increase rate by the temperature increase rate of the battery due to the operation during the battery charging . The switching means for switching the operation at the time of charging the battery to the operation with less current consumption so as to suppress the temperature rising rate according to the temperature rising rate of the battery at the time of charging the battery . Mobile phone. Mobile phone according to claim 1 or 3 rate of battery temperature increase in limit function is characterized that you cancel the decrease Then function restriction. When the speed of the battery temperature rise is reduced, the mobile phone according to claim 2 or 4, characterized that you switched to before the switching operation. A method for charging a mobile phone according to any one of claims 1 to 6 ,
The method detects a battery temperature during charging of the mobile phone at regular intervals to detect a temperature rising rate during charging, and sets a predetermined temperature rising rate when using the function of the mobile phone during the charging. A method of charging a mobile phone , wherein the function of the mobile phone is restricted so as to suppress the temperature rise when exceeding.

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